If only it were that easy
by Caty 3.14
Summary: Timeless (read as: cliché) tales in less than 1000 words. Total crack! (I was bored. Sue me.)
1. HP TMR

Harry Potter was walking along minding his own business when suddenly he tripped over nothing and fell fifty odd years into the past without any sort of reasonable cause or explanation, but he was cool with it. He stood himself up and found himself face to face with Tom Riddle, who was, by sheer coincidence, the same age as him.

"Hi. My name's Harry Potter," he introduced himself. "I come from the future where you are a mass murdering Dark Lord hellbent on world domination. You murdered my parents and have been trying to murder me since I was a baby because a prophecy said I would destroy you. Let's be friends."

"Hello Harry Potter," Tom replied. "I'm Tom Marvolo Riddle. I created a pseudonym for myself of 'Lord Voldemort' by making an anagram of my name. I have already murdered people in my intention to take over the world, but, now that I've met you, I'm going to cast my plan aside and not become a Dark Lord after all. You see, I find you particularly attractive, and I can also sense that you have part of my soul inside you. You must be a Horcrux that I will unintentionally create sometime in the future. Because of this, I'm now madly in love with you. Let's go sleep together and live happily ever after."

"Okay," Harry agreed with a happy shrug, and the two walked off into the sunset together.

If only it were that easy…


	2. HP DM Veela

Harry and his friends had just entered the Great Hall for the opening feast of their sixth year when their path was suddenly blocked by Malfoy and his cronies. It seemed the hero's schoolyard rival had something important to discuss with Gryffindor's golden boy.

"Hi, Harry," he greeted cheerfully, oblivious to the Slytherin scowls around them. "I went through my creature inheritance over the summer. It turns out that I'm a veela, and that you're my mate. Shall we go get freaky with each other to cement our bond and then live the rest of our lives madly in love with one another?"

The Gryffindors around Harry bore their teeth disdainfully at the snakes before them. A certain ginger who stood at Harry's right hand in particular snarled viciously. Harry, as oblivious to his own friends' hate as the self declared Veela had been to his own, returned the blindingly buoyant grin. "Hi, Draco. I'm glad to hear you had an interesting summer. I would love to go have sex with you and then love and devote myself to you forever, even though I've hated you since we first started Hogwarts until right now."

Draco stepped closer and offered his arm to his soon-to-be-mated-mate. "Shall we?" he invited.

"We shall," Harry accepted, hooking his own arm through the blonde's and wandering with him out of the hall. "You know, I always thought something like this would happen," he commented lightly just before the huge doors closed behind them.

In the hall they'd just vacated, the Slytherins and Gryffindors continued to sneer and snarl at one another as the school watched on.

At the head table, an ancient man with annoyingly sparkling eyes wiped a tear away as he beamed at his students. "There's nothing more powerful than love," he sighed to himself loudly enough for the entire hall to hear.

Meanwhile, a sallow man crossed his arms and sneered at everything before him, silently asking himself exactly what was wrong with the world and all the people in it.


	3. Goldilocks and the three lions

Goldilocks was skipping merrily through the woods-

"Malfoys do not _skip_!"

Goldilocks was wandering merrily through-

"Do I _look_ happy about this to you?"

 _Fine!_

Draco Malfoy was in the woods. He wasn't skipping nor was he merry. However, he was lost and had sticks and leaves in his hair and torn, dirty robes from bashing his way through the dense foliage.

" _Why_ _you_ -"

 _Eat it, ferret face!_

While he was walking along, he came upon the house of the three lions.

"While does it have to be _Gryffindors_?"

 _Because badgers and birds aren't big and scary enough to be comparable to bears._

"Why can't they just be Slytherins?"

 _Because then you'd be with your own kind and there would be no dilemma to the story._

" _'Dilemma.'_ Such a big word for you, Weasel."

 _Shut the hell up, Malfoy._

"Aren't you supposed to be one of the three lions? How can you be one of the characters and the author at the same time?"

 _Because, shut the hell up. That's why._

"How uncouth," he snorts. "And, just so you know, I have no intention of running, screaming from you pathetic Gryffindors at the end of this. As if I have anything to fear from you twerps."

 _That's okay, Malfoy. I was going to have my me rip your head off anyway for being such a slimy git._

"Hey! That blatant author bias!"

 _Yeah it is. Suck it, Malfoy!_

"This isn't going very well, is it," a tranquil voice interrupts them from the page.

"How the hell did you get in here?" the Slytherin demanded, turning to face the intruder.

"I like stories," Luna replied calmly, he head tipped gently to one side as she gaze around the technicolor forest. "This one showed promise, but you seem to have gotten a little off track."

"It's not my fault that Weasel is a fucking moron and shouldn't have even attempted this in the first place!"

"Perhaps," Luna replied vaguely. "But you're not cooperating with him either.

"You know what? Screw this. I never wanted to be here anyway."

Malfoy stomped off, throwing a massing wobbly to rival a toddler tantrum.

"Fuck you, Weasel!" he yelled back before disappearing from the story.

 _Great. Now what am I going to do? This charmed fairytale is due after lunch!_

"If it helps, I quite enjoy skipping."

 _Thanks, Luna! You're the best!_

 _He-hem._

Goldilocks was skipping merrily through the woods, when she came across...


	4. Voldemort raises Harry

Voldemort had already left one body behind him and he stepped over another as he approached the cot, his victim's hair spilling about her in a manner reminiscent of oozing blood. He raised his wand and his murderous gaze fell upon the infant prophesied to be his downfall.

" _Aww! Aren't you cute!_ " the Dark Lord crooned, meeting the vibrant green, puppy dog eyes of the round faced toddler. "Aww, I could just eat you up. _Yes I could. Yes I could_ ," he half sang as he lifted the tiny child into his arms, tapping the boy on the nose with the pointer finger of the hand which still held his wand.

"I was just going to kill you, you know," he cooed, "but now I've got a better idea. I'm going to take you home and raise you as my own son, telling you all my secrets and teaching you all of the most powerful magic I know, confident in the knowledge that you will never betray me, even once you learn the truth about me murdering your family and kidnapping you. Does that sound like a good idea to you too?" he babbled babyishly.

The child smiled up at the smitten Dark Lord, who melted inside at the little boy's cuteness. "Oh yes. You're adorable and you know it." He stepped over that body again as he headed for the door, his attention fixed on the infant in his arms. "You and I are going to do great things together, little Harry. Great things…"

His voice trailed of as they disappeared into the darkness, the Dark Lord willfully choosing to forget that he cradled his own doom in his arms…


	5. Soul Marks

"Hey mate," Ron murmured softly as he plonked himself on the stool beside Harry's.

"Ron," Harry whispered back, looking up from his textbook and cauldron. "You missed breakfast this morning. You _never_ miss breakfast." He studied his friend with concern. Ron _did_ look a little more pallid beneath his freckles than usual. "Are you alright? Did something happen?"

Ron glanced around as he pulled out his own textbook, checking for eavesdroppers, before turning back to the teen beside him. "My soul mark came up some time last night. I found it this morning," he explained so softly that his voice barely reached his potion partner.

"Ron, that's great!" Harry replied just as softly, a supportive smile warming his face. "Do you know who it means?"

"Yeah… well… I think…" the ginger stuttered nervously. "I wanted to ask, you know, if you could, I mean, for a second opinion, a bit, sort of…" He trailed off, scratching anxiously at his calf.

"Of course I can. It's not a problem," Harry agreed with a grin, willing to do whatever he needed to to help his friend.

Ron glanced around again, then lifted his leg to cross his ankle over his knee. Some people could pull that relaxed pose off, but Ron wasn't one of them. He slowly lifted the hem of his trousers to expose the tattoo like image painted on his flesh. It was a leather book with the title: _A Little Light Reading_.

Harry whistled lowly. "You and Hermione, eh? Congratulations, man," he murmured, patting the other boy on the back.

"Oh good," Ron sighed in relief, melting into his seat a little more. "I thought it was, but… you know, these things are just so damn confusing. I thought soul marks were supposed to make it easier to find your soulmate, not give you incomprehensible riddles to solve."

"Yeah, I hear you, mate," Harry agreed. "I'm still trying to work mine out."

Ron sat up sharply once more, his eyes fixed on his friend. "You got yours already? When did that happen?" he demanded, wisely keeping his voice low enough to not travel to the sallow faced potion master at the front of the classroom.

"Yeah," Harry admitted with a wince. "I got it over summer." Like Ron had, he glanced around secretively before slowly rolling up his left sleeve. "I think it means Ginny, but… well… You're her brother. You know her better than I. It's a bit abstract, but do you think this means her?" He bore his forearm, twisting his wrist slightly to show off the words decorating his skin.

 _Your soulmate is Voldemort!_

"Mate…" Ron murmured in sympathy after a drawn out silence.

"I know…" Harry muttered glumly.

"You're right about it being abstract," Ron started, "but I think you're right about Ginny…"

Snape canceled his eavesdropping charm and recrossed his arms, hissing between his teeth. " _Morons…!_ "


	6. You are what you eat

Tom pushed all his school work and other offending items to one side of his desk, then he dropped his diary into that cleared space with a scowl.

The Chamber of Secrets was now out of reach to him. He'd recognised this fact the moment that whiny Ravenclaw chit peered out of her toilet cubicle and died. Anywhere else and he might have celebrated her death. Now, it simply vexed him. He wouldn't, however, let that death go to waste.

He'd been studying immortality while hidden in the dark depths below the castle, and he'd already made a plan to achieve it. In only a matter of weeks he would return to the muggle world, and there he would choose his sacrifice, his offering for the gift of eternal life. He didn't know who to choose yet - any of the other hateful orphans would do, or even the matron or one of the other workers, but Tom had tracked down whispers of a family, other descendants of Salazar Slytherin, other speakers of the serpent tongue. He intended to meet with them, to determine whether they were his absent family, and to demand answers to his abandonment if they were. His family should have been there for him all his life. Now, he would take theirs to prolong his own.

But now, he had been cut off from his hidden sanctuary where he had intended to perform the ritual, all because of a cowardly mudblood who was beyond useless, who never should have been granted a place within the school.

Tom growled to himself as he pulled out a piece of chalk. He brushed to one side a chocolate egg that had rolled back to the centre of his desk with his diary and began carefully drawing around the leather bound book. He carefully drew two circles around his diary, with the necessary runes written concisely between them, all facing the middle of the circle except for the bottom one which faced him, then he placed his hands at two other points of the circle so his body and hands marked the points of a perfect triangle around the centre.

He closed his eyes and released a breath, expelling his frustrations and any other thought and feeling that might distract him from his task. With a low murmur, he began reciting and repeating the incantation he had spent weeks memorising and, to his pride and pleasure, he did not make a single mistake.

His magic flared within him and roared up around him, then turned inward and attacked him. He was burning from the inside, being sliced by a thousand knives, torn asunder. Just as he could take no more of the agony, something snapped, or ripped, or broke. Ice flooded him, but it soothed the burning heat, numbed the pain of being sliced open, but it did not bring with it a sense of healing, only a strange emptiness, a void, deep within him.

This was exactly the sensation the tome he'd found had described, so he opened his eyes to gaze down victoriously upon his new creation, his horcrux, his immortal-

...and he froze in horror.

That chocolate egg had rolled back into his ritual circle, and was gently pressed against one edge of his diary.

He reached out with shaky fingers - _No! It worked! It must have!_ \- and gently touched the dark leather of his diary, the book where he kept his innermost secrets.

 _Nothing..._

He felt no pulse of heat, no echo of the piece of soul, of self, that he'd burned and torn away. He felt no buzz of magic sizzling up towards him through his fingertips. He felt no connection, no longing, nothing…

 _No. NO. NO!_

 _It couldn't be! He didn't want it! Not this! His horcrux had to be perfect, durable, eternal, not something that would melt on a hot day, not **this!**_

He lifted his fingers and repositioned them. He didn't want to check, to touch, to get confirmation. _He didn't want it…_

He gently touched the foil wrapper of the chocolate egg. Warmth. A tingle of power. A feeling of wholeness, of rightness, of completion.

His horcrux was an chocolate Easter Egg.


End file.
